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Restaurants worldwide are taking the farm-to-table format a step further and harvesting their own homegrown meals. Establishing rooftop gardens, cultivating on-site herb and vegetable gardens, and maintaining cattle and dairy farms are just some innovative ways restaurants are harvesting home grown eats.

The folks behind restaurants likeDressing Room in Westport, CT have been involved with farm-to-table fare for decades. Chef Michel Nischan and his partner, the late Paul Newman, worked to insure the restaurant locally sourced all its goods. The Dressing Room buys all its grass-fed Red Devon beef from one producer and all its produce is bought uber-locally.

In 2007, Nischan also founded Wholesome Wave, a nonprofit that works in 28 states to help the impoverished gain affordable access to locally grown produce.

In North America, initiatives to encourage restaurants to source their products from within a 100-mile radius have taken off. Harvest Moon Grille in Charlotte, N.C., is just one example of an eatery getting all its food, from the flour to the pork, from within 100 miles.

An increasing number of restaurants are striving to be greener, from their construction to food-sourcing through Dine Green, a national nonprofit organization that provides convenient and cost-effective ways for restaurants, manufacturers, distributors, and consumers to become more environmentally responsible.

And still, some restaurants have gone a step further and have just bought the farm — literally.

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Lauren Mack is the New York City Travel Editor at The Daily Meal. She is also the former Travel Editor and Special Projects Editor at The Daily Meal. Follow her on Twitter @lmack.